10 ms·

LAPD adds drones to arsenal, says they'll be used sparingly

153 points by radley 12y ago

LoganCale 12y ago
They'll be used sparingly until people are used to them and then they'll start using them more.
- ikusalic 12y ago
  This. The point is you can introduce all the changes you want if you do it slowly and never aggravate significant percentage of the population.
- lotu 12y ago
  Well yes, are you implying there is something inherently wrong with drones?
  - LoganCale 12y ago
    In the hands of police, absolutely. I do not want police to have access to rapid, easy surveillance at that level.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - bayesianhorse 12y ago
      They have... it's called a patrol car. And about as obvious as these drones.
  - TillE 12y ago
    Is there something inherently wrong with omnipresent CCTV? It's just technology, right?
    - yaur 12y ago
      CCTV, as deployed today, really falls into to two categories. By far the largest of these is people who own or lease private property who are installing cameras on their own property. There are some "public private partnerships" where LEO is tapping into these feeds but, at least in the system I built, there is significant auditing involved. In order to catch "LOVEINT" style snooping. Typically though this footage goes completely unmonitored unless there is a incident though. The second category is cameras that capture what would otherwise be "in public view." These are systems where the cameras are clearly visible and mounted close to the ground. In the context of the law having a live detective monitor a suspects house is pretty much the same as putting up a camera that would be functionally identical, which is pretty much the same as putting up a 1000 cameras and doing LPR on every car that passes by. If the feasibility of this kind of surveillance requires a change in the law is still an unresolved policy issue IMO. With drones there are bigger issues. Because of elevation they are going to capture images of things that wouldn't be "in public view" and would therefore typically require a warrant. If these images were limited to the suspect there isn't an issue, but of course they aren't. The real kicker is going to be when someone figures out that they just need to add a $5K thermal sensor to the thing in order to net a couple incidental drug busts every time they need to track a suspect. At that point they will become profitable to operate, usage will increase, and one of the current bright-line tests for when you need a warrant will become significantly fuzzier. Don't get me wrong. This type of technology is solving crimes that would otherwise be unsolved and helping people like Jianqing Klyzek protect themselves from police misconduct, but appropriate limits need to be put in place. The efficiency of subservience technology is only going to increase. We can't stop the world from innovating the only way to maintain a reasonable balance between privacy and safety is through policy and where to draw the line is definitely something that reasonable people can disagree on.
      - mpyne 12y ago
        > We can't stop the world from innovating the only way to maintain a reasonable balance between privacy and safety is through policy and where to draw the line is definitely something that reasonable people can disagree on. I agree. Getting to the "in public view" point, private use of drones is becoming increasingly common too, and the law seems to be loath to prevent the police from legally doing something that J. Random Citizen could also do just as legally. So to the extent that your random hobbyist could use drones we should expect that the police will not be far behind either, just as helicopters and planes are not forbidden to police use.
  - Donzo 12y ago
    It depends: Are they outfitted with cameras that can see through walls and roofs? To me, that would constitute a violation of the 4th Amendment.
    - ewoodrich 12y ago
      That's a completely different issue. Drone mounted or not, those sort of surveillance methods require a warrant following Kyllo v. United States. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States
    - jevinskie 12y ago
      It would be, there is precedent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States > Department of the Interior used a thermal imaging device outside of Danny Lee Kyllo's home in Florence, Oregon. According to the District Court that presided over Kyllo's evidentiary hearing, the device could not "penetrate walls or windows to reveal conversations or human activities. The device recorded only heat being emitted from the home." Hmmm, I wonder why the Department of the Interior is concerned with private residences in the first place? The reach of the War on Drugs is pretty incredible. > The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the thermal imaging of Kyllo's home constituted a search. Since the police did not have a warrant when they used the device, which was not commonly available to the public, the search was presumptively unreasonable and therefore unconstitutional. The majority opinion argued that a person has an expected privacy in his or her home and therefore, the government cannot conduct unreasonable searches, even with technology that does not enter the home.
      - mcintyre1994 12y ago
        I just looked up the US Department of the Interior (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_the_Interior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_the_Interior) and I'm confused about what they were doing - the war on drugs seems way outside their stated purposes. The article on the ruling doesn't seem to mention it though, would it have been fine if they'd had a warrant? I don't even see why they are able to get search warrants for a home from their stated purpose. Interesting and recent precedent though. I wonder if it would hold for a normal camera if a drone flew past a house at human walking height and took pictures of what's inside. I'm guessing a police officer can act on seeing something in a house they're walking past, if that's the case then what if a drone took a picture and an officer later or immediately saw it?
  - rhizome 12y ago
    Yes, they were rejected by the citizens of Seattle, which is why they gave them to the LAPD. Maybe they figured that the approval tide would be more easily begun in LA?
    - sxtxixtxcxh 12y ago
      we got wifi scanning instead of drones... http://www.kirotv.com/videos/news/video-seattle-cops-can-monitor-your-every-move/vCHnd8/ http://www.kirotv.com/videos/news/video-seattle-cops-can-mon...
- rhizome 12y ago
  And however much they do use them will be their definition of "sparingly." This is the only time that a yes or no can be lodged. Once they start they will be allowed to do whatever they want with them, only experiencing the occasional paid suspension and press conference for overstepping. All law enforcement technologies have experieniced this history.
  - smtddr 12y ago
    >>And however much they do use them will be their definition of "sparingly." Sparingly = Almost never used in affluent neighborhoods... but any that are of low income or high diversity? Those folks will never see the clouds or the sun again... just a blanket of drones. Then those people will begin shooting them down, then the police will start to patrol more to catch the people destroying them, then local residents get arrested, then a police officer will be hurt, then the police will increase their force to "protect" themselves... then the local residents will complain about being profiled and stopped "randomly" on the streets without cause, then they'll all start wearing hoodies & hats to cover their faces, then they'll all "look suspicious", then the police will "accidentally" kill one of the residents - a person of color I'm sure, then a leaked email/voicemail of an LAPD officer making a racist comment will surface, then they'll apologize, then the drones will be limited again... maybe...
    - rhizome 12y ago
      An idea I had over the weekend was that if drones are going to be used in cities, they should first be used to find potholes. Then, once they are measured to be good at that (and the potholes are fixed), then we can talk about other uses, like finding burned-out streetlights, bad/missing street lane striping, and poorly-visible signage.
- enlightenedfool 12y ago
  which is okay for a majority of people. that's why they keep electing the same people who create the laws. people who complain are a minority and they lose and that's how democracy works.
- lurchpop 12y ago
  Conservatively, I'd say abuse will start in 18-24 months.
  - peteretep 12y ago
    Could you define abuse here?
higherpurpose 12y ago
"Only for serious crimes", just like the use of SWAT teams. In other words for things like mass murder...drug possession...not paying your mortgage on time.
- whatevsbro 12y ago
  > In other words for things like mass murder Oh, right. Like a country's "leader" sending hundreds of thousands or millions of people to kill or be killed in a war? -That kind of mass murder?
weland 12y ago
Fifty bucks they'll "only use it for counter-terrorist operations". Another fifty bucks says wearing dubious clothes is going to be a terrorist operation fifteen years from now.
- joesmo 12y ago
  Wearing dubious clothes is a "terrorist operation" nowadays, at least as far as police reaction.
  - peteretep 12y ago
    Seems relevant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Diego/List_of_Guantanamo_Bay_detainees_accused_of_possessing_Casio_watches http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Diego/List_of_Guantanamo_B...
adam74 12y ago
I hated those things in HL2.
leorocky 12y ago
Why shouldn't law enforcement use drones? Law enforcement are bound by the same laws any citizen is and they are the tool what we as a society use to insure security in our lives. Why wouldn't we want to make their jobs easier? The worse I could imagine is that drones are used to catch people smoking pot in their backyards. The people who officiate over the police are elected officials and all their practices, including data retention from surveillance is subject to judicial review and the laws our representatives write. Use of technology like this is inevitable anyway. It seems pointless to fight it, and if you do oppose it how would you fight it anyway? Write to you congress representative? Protest? Is that really going to work?
- Blahah 12y ago
  Your post isn't self-consistent. First you say that democracy means we have nothing to fear from police with drones, then you imply it's pointless to resist because the democratic methods don't work.
  - leorocky 12y ago
    I made no claims about democracy at all. I made a comment about police being accountable to elected officials and another about the futility of protests in this particular instance. The police are accountable to elected officials. If there is the sort of significant abuse this comment thread is full of, there will be popular outcry. The futility of protests and outraged posts on social news sites is nought to do with democracy. The police are popular with the majority of Americans (This is a post about a US city), and so if a minority of people object to tools police use it is futile. HN is rife with police hate and outrage but we have a very professional police force filled with good people who do a good job protecting our security. If you doubt it, try other countries that don't have what we have. It's the libertarian streak of the average HN reader. If there's anything inconsistent it's the libertarian who wants personal freedom to the extreme but also a quality of life they are used to in a western democracy.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 12y ago
alkonaut 12y ago
Police use helicopters for all sorts of things. What is problematic isn't the monitoring from above, it's that it is so cheap. A helicopter with crew costs over $1000 per hour, so we know you know we aren't being monitored indiscriminately from above. Its simply to expensive. With drones, the cost of air surveillance drops to a whole other level. A level that almost allows for mass surveillance. The same argument can be made about drone warfare: it's not the shooting/bombing from above that is disturbing, it's that it can be performed at almost zero risk. The same argument we saw in communications surveillance. When listening to a phone call was expensive it was one thing, when listening to communications became free we know what happened. Cost, however, shouldn't be what limits surveillance, regulation should. If police can switch from a helicopter to a drone for sime mission, and save 90%, that should be a good thing.
- LoganCale 12y ago
  Exactly right: it's the fact that this makes mass surveillance so much easier that is the problem with certain surveillance technology being used by law enforcement.
- bayesianhorse 12y ago
  The NSA does not appear to have the capability of analyzing all the data it taps in a way that would actually be considered intrusive. Knowing the state of AI I just can't imagine this. It's not like in "Person of Interest" where the government has a machine to automatically sift out problems. Same with drones and law enforcement. I can see them using drones in a surveillance capacity, for traffic control, maybe even to track a fugitive. But large-scale drone surveillance? Peaking into people's homes? Tracking people the way they can't track them right now through CCTV footage? No way, no how. The biggest risk from drones is that they fall out of the sky all the time. This will partly resolved through break throughs in artificial intelligence, but for now birds, lines, insects, power failures, hackers or even projectiles can take down a drone, potentially hitting someone. That's why they are used sparingly. A crashing drone is even more obvious than one flying above you making tons of noise. Not very clandestine operations...
  - 12y ago
arpstick 12y ago
I wonder if this means this will encourage criminals and gangs to stock up on rocket propelled grenades and other anti aircraft weaponry.
- serf 12y ago
  for a multirotor? How about a well-placed rock? a roof mounted computer vision slingshot comes to mind.
  - arpstick 12y ago
    sounds like a great way to get slingshots made illegal in L.A.
- spacemanmatt 12y ago
  A well placed net or piece of wire lobbed at it would suffice. Seems like someone reasonably motivated could clear them from the sky easily.
Tycho 12y ago
What could possibly go wrong.
cheald 12y ago
Well, if there's anyone that we can trust to behave honorably and to not abuse their position of power, it's the LAPD.
DrFunke 12y ago
The fact that they say they'll be used sparingly is what makes me uneasy.
Istof 12y ago
sparingly during the course of the day (because the batteries don't last anyways)
joesmo 12y ago
Police claim the drones will have "narrow and prescribed uses." Interesting. That's the same claim that was made when LA introduced the first SWAT team. I expect it to be just as true: false.
paulannesley 12y ago
I wonder what the battery life is like, and whether they have any automated ways to get them charged and back in the sky. Like auto-landing on a charging bay - kind of like how Roombas dock and recharge.
- Roboprog 12y ago
  Typical hobby aircraft lithium polymer battery lifetime is about 5 to 20 minutes. Be ready to swap batteries a few times an hour. They might have batteries that can go an hour, but I can't see the batteries getting much heavier than that.
thwest 12y ago
Arsenal implies they will be armed, right?
- evan_ 12y ago
  No, it doesn't.
- stefantalpalaru 12y ago
  not yet
patcheudor 12y ago
I want to know one thing. Will it be illegal to point a laser pointer at them?
- btgeekboy 12y ago
  I see nothing in Title 18, Chapter 2, Section 39A [1] requiring the aircraft to be manned. IANAL, though. [1] http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2012-title18/html/USCODE-2012-title18-partI-chap2-sec39A.htm http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2012-title18/html/USCODE...
thruffle 12y ago
I wouldn't have much of a problem with this if they specified the "narrow and prescribed" uses (and they seemed relatively tightly defined). One wonders if they've actually decided on those uses internally and not shared it with the public, or they haven't even made specific decisions there. Neither answer is good, really.
bitL 12y ago
Time to get a nice tough crowbar 8-)
allochthon 12y ago
Does anyone know why they're using a full-blown (possibly old-school) camera? It seems like something digital would have been inexpensive and straightforward to use, and would have fewer moving parts.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
Balgair 12y ago
I live in LA. This is more complicated than you think. Example: I take the bus, because, screw traffic. It's nicer and easier. We are at Santa Monica and Westwood and a cop car pulls up right next to me. I'm higher up, and this light takes a long time, so I get a good long chance to view the cop car over. I was surprised. The damn thing was rusted to all hell. There was a thermal scanner on the top, but good lord if it actually worked. Most of the BNC cables (yes, really, like in freshman lab) were frayed up. The top was totally rust, and a bit of liner was coming through. Remember, in SoCal, we get rain maybe 5 times a year. This car was OLD. The thing about LA cops is that they are sensible and responding to incentives correctly. The LA basin is gigantic and they have to patrol all of it. Add in the low taxes for police support, and you get the main problem of a street officer: Backup is 25 minutes away. It's just you and your partner most of the time. This, above all else, explains the LAPD. The US Army ran into a similar problem in Iraq right after the fall. We became the police, effectively. Problem was, just like in LA, the area was too big for the force size. All small houses, all just sprawl, no back-up. Things started out just the same as in LA. You are FORCED, in order to protect yourselves, to be the Biggest Badass all around. You must culture a sense in the populace that you DO NOT FUCK WITH the US Army. Brutality is necessary. This is what the LAPD is doing, and it makes sense. Thing is, Iraq taught us a lot about COIN, COunter INsurgency. What the army ended up doing, and it was much more successful, was you deputize the local leaders. Make them hash things out among themselves. Only call the Army when you really need them. They do not become a patrol force, but a real big hammer that whomps on things. Patrols are the job of local deputies. The LAPD, being in California, cannot do this. The legal system here in the states will not allow for local deputations of people in Compton and Koreatown. Just from a benefits and payment perspective alone you can't do this. So, the LAPD is doing the best it can to stay alive, which is the situation the taxpayers of LA county have put them in. You want less drones and a better police force in LA? Pay them more to get more people on the streets. Give them back-up. Then they won't be so brutal, because they won't be alone. Otherwise, drones and the like are here to stay
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  > This is what the LAPD is doing, and it makes sense. No, it doesn't. LAPD is not the fucking army. The army on foreign land during an invasion has to treat everyone like a potential enemy that can take their lives. The police does not and should not act the same way against American citizens. Their job is to protect the citizens, not see every single one of them as a potential enemy. The police is being paid well. But what do they do? They don't hire more offiers with the money. Instead they buy tank-like vehicles, anti-air rockets [1], drones and train and equip the current officers to become more militarized (more SWAT teams, but also for regular officers). As an army man, have you ever thought about why the army is not allowed to act on US soil? Because the army is a much more aggressive brute force sort of authority, and that's not acceptable in a democracy (unless you want to inevitably live in a civil war-like zone, as a response to that from the population). That's why we have the police. If the police becomes the army, then that kind of screws everything up. [1] - http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/nypd-shoot-planes-weapon/story?id=14608555 http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/nypd-shoot-planes-weapon/story...
barefoot 12y ago
I fly FPV aircraft as a hobby and don't find anything particulary scary about police use of drones for increased situational awareness. They are excellent low cost tools that could probably save both civilian and law enforcement lives when used correctly. A point that I find interesting - not brought up in the discussion here so far - is that the reduced cost in equipment also makes it easier for ordinary civilians to oversee police activity to some extent. We're living in the world where anyone can make and own this amazing bit of technology. It strikes me as bizarre to limit police from using them.
- Yardlink 12y ago
  Indeed. They're not doing anything hobbyists like yourself can't do anyway. We can't expect the government to be less capable than ordinary people. The problem would be if the police can legally use drones for intrusive purposes that are illegal for normal people. But if so, that's a problem with the law, and it's the law that would need to be changed.
- edwardhotchkiss 12y ago
  Regarding saving lives, police work as compared to many other professions isn't a high-risk job. Police might tell you otherwise, but the numbers don't. High altitude FPV is one thing, these are multi-rotor invasive smaller drones.
- chiph 12y ago
  At some point they'll claim that a private FPV operator interfered with an investigation (their drone gave away to the suspects that they were under surveillance, control frequencies clashed, etc) and then they'll push to ban private ownership.
aetherspawn 12y ago
I was half expecting a Robocop scenerio.
stretchwithme 12y ago
Personally, I'd rather have a drone land on a car and plug up the tailpipe than have a high speed chase carried on through a populated neighborhood.
spacemanmatt 12y ago
LDAP with drones? Is that so it can destroy you and the building you logged in from after 3 failed password attempts?
mlangdon 12y ago
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
DigitalSea 12y ago
I don't know how I feel about this to be honest. On one hand I can see the benefits of reduced costs. Why fly up a helicopter if a drone can be used in its place? Why send police to patrol high-crime areas if a drone can do that much more safely without any casualties? Then there are the downsides. > The LAPD is not the military. With these new tools at their disposal, the police could use drones to overstep their boundaries as police. > If the drones are equipped with any kind of tactical ability (firing ammunition or firing a taser) this could result in innocent civilians being targeted by drone strikes. > Drones would allow for extremely affordable surveillance which in turn would mean the fears of a state becoming a surveillance state (even worse than it is now) would be realised. > Regulation. Who is going to regulate the use of drones by the LAPD? Who decides what the purpose of a drone being used for is and are there processes in place to prevent abuse? Who regulates the regulator? > Remember what happened when SWAT teams were introduced? They were meant to be for only serious crimes and then look what happened. Before we knew it, SWAT teams were being deployed at relatively peaceful protests, they were being used to evict people out of their foreclosed homes and they started being used on people accused of copyright infringement. Are we going to see something similar to that of the Kent State shooting in the 70's only this time drones will be used? I think the downsides far outweigh the benefits. The police are becoming far too militarised for my liking. Although many refute these claims, you only have to look at what tools police have at their disposal nowadays compared to what they had 20 years ago. We've gone from cars and pistols to high-powered machine guns with heavy rounds and tank-like vehicles.
transfire 12y ago
Here's the problem that no seems to get (especially the police and our politicians): the more they weaponize, the more the citizenry and criminals weaponize to match. How much longer before we hear about the first mass shooting using a drone?
aceperry 12y ago
100 points for hacking the drone and bringing it down like Iran did to the US.
betterunix 12y ago
Just like SWAT teams are used sparingly...
Roboprog 12y ago
I'm reminded of an old Larry Niven short story where kids hide in the park and throw rocks at the "copseyes". An incidental part of the story was that the police had floating camera platforms. And people didn't like them.

153 points by radley 12y ago

LoganCale 12y ago

They'll be used sparingly until people are used to them and then they'll start using them more.

ikusalic 12y ago
This. The point is you can introduce all the changes you want if you do it slowly and never aggravate significant percentage of the population.
lotu 12y ago
Well yes, are you implying there is something inherently wrong with drones?
- LoganCale 12y ago
  In the hands of police, absolutely. I do not want police to have access to rapid, easy surveillance at that level.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - bayesianhorse 12y ago
    They have... it's called a patrol car. And about as obvious as these drones.
- TillE 12y ago
  Is there something inherently wrong with omnipresent CCTV? It's just technology, right?
  - yaur 12y ago
    CCTV, as deployed today, really falls into to two categories. By far the largest of these is people who own or lease private property who are installing cameras on their own property. There are some "public private partnerships" where LEO is tapping into these feeds but, at least in the system I built, there is significant auditing involved. In order to catch "LOVEINT" style snooping. Typically though this footage goes completely unmonitored unless there is a incident though. The second category is cameras that capture what would otherwise be "in public view." These are systems where the cameras are clearly visible and mounted close to the ground. In the context of the law having a live detective monitor a suspects house is pretty much the same as putting up a camera that would be functionally identical, which is pretty much the same as putting up a 1000 cameras and doing LPR on every car that passes by. If the feasibility of this kind of surveillance requires a change in the law is still an unresolved policy issue IMO. With drones there are bigger issues. Because of elevation they are going to capture images of things that wouldn't be "in public view" and would therefore typically require a warrant. If these images were limited to the suspect there isn't an issue, but of course they aren't. The real kicker is going to be when someone figures out that they just need to add a $5K thermal sensor to the thing in order to net a couple incidental drug busts every time they need to track a suspect. At that point they will become profitable to operate, usage will increase, and one of the current bright-line tests for when you need a warrant will become significantly fuzzier. Don't get me wrong. This type of technology is solving crimes that would otherwise be unsolved and helping people like Jianqing Klyzek protect themselves from police misconduct, but appropriate limits need to be put in place. The efficiency of subservience technology is only going to increase. We can't stop the world from innovating the only way to maintain a reasonable balance between privacy and safety is through policy and where to draw the line is definitely something that reasonable people can disagree on.
    - mpyne 12y ago
      > We can't stop the world from innovating the only way to maintain a reasonable balance between privacy and safety is through policy and where to draw the line is definitely something that reasonable people can disagree on. I agree. Getting to the "in public view" point, private use of drones is becoming increasingly common too, and the law seems to be loath to prevent the police from legally doing something that J. Random Citizen could also do just as legally. So to the extent that your random hobbyist could use drones we should expect that the police will not be far behind either, just as helicopters and planes are not forbidden to police use.
- Donzo 12y ago
  It depends: Are they outfitted with cameras that can see through walls and roofs? To me, that would constitute a violation of the 4th Amendment.
  - ewoodrich 12y ago
    That's a completely different issue. Drone mounted or not, those sort of surveillance methods require a warrant following Kyllo v. United States. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States
  - jevinskie 12y ago
    It would be, there is precedent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States > Department of the Interior used a thermal imaging device outside of Danny Lee Kyllo's home in Florence, Oregon. According to the District Court that presided over Kyllo's evidentiary hearing, the device could not "penetrate walls or windows to reveal conversations or human activities. The device recorded only heat being emitted from the home." Hmmm, I wonder why the Department of the Interior is concerned with private residences in the first place? The reach of the War on Drugs is pretty incredible. > The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the thermal imaging of Kyllo's home constituted a search. Since the police did not have a warrant when they used the device, which was not commonly available to the public, the search was presumptively unreasonable and therefore unconstitutional. The majority opinion argued that a person has an expected privacy in his or her home and therefore, the government cannot conduct unreasonable searches, even with technology that does not enter the home.
    - mcintyre1994 12y ago
      I just looked up the US Department of the Interior (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_the_Interior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_the_Interior) and I'm confused about what they were doing - the war on drugs seems way outside their stated purposes. The article on the ruling doesn't seem to mention it though, would it have been fine if they'd had a warrant? I don't even see why they are able to get search warrants for a home from their stated purpose. Interesting and recent precedent though. I wonder if it would hold for a normal camera if a drone flew past a house at human walking height and took pictures of what's inside. I'm guessing a police officer can act on seeing something in a house they're walking past, if that's the case then what if a drone took a picture and an officer later or immediately saw it?
- rhizome 12y ago
  Yes, they were rejected by the citizens of Seattle, which is why they gave them to the LAPD. Maybe they figured that the approval tide would be more easily begun in LA?
  - sxtxixtxcxh 12y ago
    we got wifi scanning instead of drones... http://www.kirotv.com/videos/news/video-seattle-cops-can-monitor-your-every-move/vCHnd8/ http://www.kirotv.com/videos/news/video-seattle-cops-can-mon...
rhizome 12y ago
And however much they do use them will be their definition of "sparingly." This is the only time that a yes or no can be lodged. Once they start they will be allowed to do whatever they want with them, only experiencing the occasional paid suspension and press conference for overstepping. All law enforcement technologies have experieniced this history.
- smtddr 12y ago
  >>And however much they do use them will be their definition of "sparingly." Sparingly = Almost never used in affluent neighborhoods... but any that are of low income or high diversity? Those folks will never see the clouds or the sun again... just a blanket of drones. Then those people will begin shooting them down, then the police will start to patrol more to catch the people destroying them, then local residents get arrested, then a police officer will be hurt, then the police will increase their force to "protect" themselves... then the local residents will complain about being profiled and stopped "randomly" on the streets without cause, then they'll all start wearing hoodies & hats to cover their faces, then they'll all "look suspicious", then the police will "accidentally" kill one of the residents - a person of color I'm sure, then a leaked email/voicemail of an LAPD officer making a racist comment will surface, then they'll apologize, then the drones will be limited again... maybe...
  - rhizome 12y ago
    An idea I had over the weekend was that if drones are going to be used in cities, they should first be used to find potholes. Then, once they are measured to be good at that (and the potholes are fixed), then we can talk about other uses, like finding burned-out streetlights, bad/missing street lane striping, and poorly-visible signage.
enlightenedfool 12y ago
which is okay for a majority of people. that's why they keep electing the same people who create the laws. people who complain are a minority and they lose and that's how democracy works.
lurchpop 12y ago
Conservatively, I'd say abuse will start in 18-24 months.
- peteretep 12y ago
  Could you define abuse here?

higherpurpose 12y ago

"Only for serious crimes", just like the use of SWAT teams. In other words for things like mass murder...drug possession...not paying your mortgage on time.

whatevsbro 12y ago
> In other words for things like mass murder Oh, right. Like a country's "leader" sending hundreds of thousands or millions of people to kill or be killed in a war? -That kind of mass murder?

weland 12y ago

Fifty bucks they'll "only use it for counter-terrorist operations". Another fifty bucks says wearing dubious clothes is going to be a terrorist operation fifteen years from now.

joesmo 12y ago
Wearing dubious clothes is a "terrorist operation" nowadays, at least as far as police reaction.
- peteretep 12y ago
  Seems relevant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Diego/List_of_Guantanamo_Bay_detainees_accused_of_possessing_Casio_watches http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Diego/List_of_Guantanamo_B...

adam74 12y ago

I hated those things in HL2.

leorocky 12y ago

Why shouldn't law enforcement use drones? Law enforcement are bound by the same laws any citizen is and they are the tool what we as a society use to insure security in our lives. Why wouldn't we want to make their jobs easier? The worse I could imagine is that drones are used to catch people smoking pot in their backyards. The people who officiate over the police are elected officials and all their practices, including data retention from surveillance is subject to judicial review and the laws our representatives write. Use of technology like this is inevitable anyway. It seems pointless to fight it, and if you do oppose it how would you fight it anyway? Write to you congress representative? Protest? Is that really going to work?

Blahah 12y ago
Your post isn't self-consistent. First you say that democracy means we have nothing to fear from police with drones, then you imply it's pointless to resist because the democratic methods don't work.
- leorocky 12y ago
  I made no claims about democracy at all. I made a comment about police being accountable to elected officials and another about the futility of protests in this particular instance. The police are accountable to elected officials. If there is the sort of significant abuse this comment thread is full of, there will be popular outcry. The futility of protests and outraged posts on social news sites is nought to do with democracy. The police are popular with the majority of Americans (This is a post about a US city), and so if a minority of people object to tools police use it is futile. HN is rife with police hate and outrage but we have a very professional police force filled with good people who do a good job protecting our security. If you doubt it, try other countries that don't have what we have. It's the libertarian streak of the average HN reader. If there's anything inconsistent it's the libertarian who wants personal freedom to the extreme but also a quality of life they are used to in a western democracy.
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alkonaut 12y ago

Police use helicopters for all sorts of things. What is problematic isn't the monitoring from above, it's that it is so cheap. A helicopter with crew costs over $1000 per hour, so we know you know we aren't being monitored indiscriminately from above. Its simply to expensive. With drones, the cost of air surveillance drops to a whole other level. A level that almost allows for mass surveillance. The same argument can be made about drone warfare: it's not the shooting/bombing from above that is disturbing, it's that it can be performed at almost zero risk. The same argument we saw in communications surveillance. When listening to a phone call was expensive it was one thing, when listening to communications became free we know what happened. Cost, however, shouldn't be what limits surveillance, regulation should. If police can switch from a helicopter to a drone for sime mission, and save 90%, that should be a good thing.

LoganCale 12y ago
Exactly right: it's the fact that this makes mass surveillance so much easier that is the problem with certain surveillance technology being used by law enforcement.
bayesianhorse 12y ago
The NSA does not appear to have the capability of analyzing all the data it taps in a way that would actually be considered intrusive. Knowing the state of AI I just can't imagine this. It's not like in "Person of Interest" where the government has a machine to automatically sift out problems. Same with drones and law enforcement. I can see them using drones in a surveillance capacity, for traffic control, maybe even to track a fugitive. But large-scale drone surveillance? Peaking into people's homes? Tracking people the way they can't track them right now through CCTV footage? No way, no how. The biggest risk from drones is that they fall out of the sky all the time. This will partly resolved through break throughs in artificial intelligence, but for now birds, lines, insects, power failures, hackers or even projectiles can take down a drone, potentially hitting someone. That's why they are used sparingly. A crashing drone is even more obvious than one flying above you making tons of noise. Not very clandestine operations...
- 12y ago

arpstick 12y ago

I wonder if this means this will encourage criminals and gangs to stock up on rocket propelled grenades and other anti aircraft weaponry.

serf 12y ago
for a multirotor? How about a well-placed rock? a roof mounted computer vision slingshot comes to mind.
- arpstick 12y ago
  sounds like a great way to get slingshots made illegal in L.A.
spacemanmatt 12y ago
A well placed net or piece of wire lobbed at it would suffice. Seems like someone reasonably motivated could clear them from the sky easily.

Tycho 12y ago

What could possibly go wrong.

cheald 12y ago

Well, if there's anyone that we can trust to behave honorably and to not abuse their position of power, it's the LAPD.

DrFunke 12y ago

The fact that they say they'll be used sparingly is what makes me uneasy.

Istof 12y ago

sparingly during the course of the day (because the batteries don't last anyways)

joesmo 12y ago

Police claim the drones will have "narrow and prescribed uses." Interesting. That's the same claim that was made when LA introduced the first SWAT team. I expect it to be just as true: false.

paulannesley 12y ago

I wonder what the battery life is like, and whether they have any automated ways to get them charged and back in the sky. Like auto-landing on a charging bay - kind of like how Roombas dock and recharge.

Roboprog 12y ago
Typical hobby aircraft lithium polymer battery lifetime is about 5 to 20 minutes. Be ready to swap batteries a few times an hour. They might have batteries that can go an hour, but I can't see the batteries getting much heavier than that.

thwest 12y ago

Arsenal implies they will be armed, right?

evan_ 12y ago
No, it doesn't.
stefantalpalaru 12y ago
not yet

patcheudor 12y ago

I want to know one thing. Will it be illegal to point a laser pointer at them?

btgeekboy 12y ago
I see nothing in Title 18, Chapter 2, Section 39A [1] requiring the aircraft to be manned. IANAL, though. [1] http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2012-title18/html/USCODE-2012-title18-partI-chap2-sec39A.htm http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2012-title18/html/USCODE...

thruffle 12y ago

I wouldn't have much of a problem with this if they specified the "narrow and prescribed" uses (and they seemed relatively tightly defined). One wonders if they've actually decided on those uses internally and not shared it with the public, or they haven't even made specific decisions there. Neither answer is good, really.

bitL 12y ago

Time to get a nice tough crowbar 8-)

allochthon 12y ago

Does anyone know why they're using a full-blown (possibly old-school) camera? It seems like something digital would have been inexpensive and straightforward to use, and would have fewer moving parts.

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Balgair 12y ago

I live in LA. This is more complicated than you think. Example: I take the bus, because, screw traffic. It's nicer and easier. We are at Santa Monica and Westwood and a cop car pulls up right next to me. I'm higher up, and this light takes a long time, so I get a good long chance to view the cop car over. I was surprised. The damn thing was rusted to all hell. There was a thermal scanner on the top, but good lord if it actually worked. Most of the BNC cables (yes, really, like in freshman lab) were frayed up. The top was totally rust, and a bit of liner was coming through. Remember, in SoCal, we get rain maybe 5 times a year. This car was OLD. The thing about LA cops is that they are sensible and responding to incentives correctly. The LA basin is gigantic and they have to patrol all of it. Add in the low taxes for police support, and you get the main problem of a street officer: Backup is 25 minutes away. It's just you and your partner most of the time. This, above all else, explains the LAPD. The US Army ran into a similar problem in Iraq right after the fall. We became the police, effectively. Problem was, just like in LA, the area was too big for the force size. All small houses, all just sprawl, no back-up. Things started out just the same as in LA. You are FORCED, in order to protect yourselves, to be the Biggest Badass all around. You must culture a sense in the populace that you DO NOT FUCK WITH the US Army. Brutality is necessary. This is what the LAPD is doing, and it makes sense. Thing is, Iraq taught us a lot about COIN, COunter INsurgency. What the army ended up doing, and it was much more successful, was you deputize the local leaders. Make them hash things out among themselves. Only call the Army when you really need them. They do not become a patrol force, but a real big hammer that whomps on things. Patrols are the job of local deputies. The LAPD, being in California, cannot do this. The legal system here in the states will not allow for local deputations of people in Compton and Koreatown. Just from a benefits and payment perspective alone you can't do this. So, the LAPD is doing the best it can to stay alive, which is the situation the taxpayers of LA county have put them in. You want less drones and a better police force in LA? Pay them more to get more people on the streets. Give them back-up. Then they won't be so brutal, because they won't be alone. Otherwise, drones and the like are here to stay

higherpurpose 12y ago
> This is what the LAPD is doing, and it makes sense. No, it doesn't. LAPD is not the fucking army. The army on foreign land during an invasion has to treat everyone like a potential enemy that can take their lives. The police does not and should not act the same way against American citizens. Their job is to protect the citizens, not see every single one of them as a potential enemy. The police is being paid well. But what do they do? They don't hire more offiers with the money. Instead they buy tank-like vehicles, anti-air rockets [1], drones and train and equip the current officers to become more militarized (more SWAT teams, but also for regular officers). As an army man, have you ever thought about why the army is not allowed to act on US soil? Because the army is a much more aggressive brute force sort of authority, and that's not acceptable in a democracy (unless you want to inevitably live in a civil war-like zone, as a response to that from the population). That's why we have the police. If the police becomes the army, then that kind of screws everything up. [1] - http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/nypd-shoot-planes-weapon/story?id=14608555 http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/nypd-shoot-planes-weapon/story...

barefoot 12y ago

I fly FPV aircraft as a hobby and don't find anything particulary scary about police use of drones for increased situational awareness. They are excellent low cost tools that could probably save both civilian and law enforcement lives when used correctly. A point that I find interesting - not brought up in the discussion here so far - is that the reduced cost in equipment also makes it easier for ordinary civilians to oversee police activity to some extent. We're living in the world where anyone can make and own this amazing bit of technology. It strikes me as bizarre to limit police from using them.

Yardlink 12y ago
Indeed. They're not doing anything hobbyists like yourself can't do anyway. We can't expect the government to be less capable than ordinary people. The problem would be if the police can legally use drones for intrusive purposes that are illegal for normal people. But if so, that's a problem with the law, and it's the law that would need to be changed.
edwardhotchkiss 12y ago
Regarding saving lives, police work as compared to many other professions isn't a high-risk job. Police might tell you otherwise, but the numbers don't. High altitude FPV is one thing, these are multi-rotor invasive smaller drones.
chiph 12y ago
At some point they'll claim that a private FPV operator interfered with an investigation (their drone gave away to the suspects that they were under surveillance, control frequencies clashed, etc) and then they'll push to ban private ownership.

aetherspawn 12y ago

I was half expecting a Robocop scenerio.

stretchwithme 12y ago

Personally, I'd rather have a drone land on a car and plug up the tailpipe than have a high speed chase carried on through a populated neighborhood.

spacemanmatt 12y ago

LDAP with drones? Is that so it can destroy you and the building you logged in from after 3 failed password attempts?

mlangdon 12y ago

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

DigitalSea 12y ago

I don't know how I feel about this to be honest. On one hand I can see the benefits of reduced costs. Why fly up a helicopter if a drone can be used in its place? Why send police to patrol high-crime areas if a drone can do that much more safely without any casualties? Then there are the downsides. > The LAPD is not the military. With these new tools at their disposal, the police could use drones to overstep their boundaries as police. > If the drones are equipped with any kind of tactical ability (firing ammunition or firing a taser) this could result in innocent civilians being targeted by drone strikes. > Drones would allow for extremely affordable surveillance which in turn would mean the fears of a state becoming a surveillance state (even worse than it is now) would be realised. > Regulation. Who is going to regulate the use of drones by the LAPD? Who decides what the purpose of a drone being used for is and are there processes in place to prevent abuse? Who regulates the regulator? > Remember what happened when SWAT teams were introduced? They were meant to be for only serious crimes and then look what happened. Before we knew it, SWAT teams were being deployed at relatively peaceful protests, they were being used to evict people out of their foreclosed homes and they started being used on people accused of copyright infringement. Are we going to see something similar to that of the Kent State shooting in the 70's only this time drones will be used? I think the downsides far outweigh the benefits. The police are becoming far too militarised for my liking. Although many refute these claims, you only have to look at what tools police have at their disposal nowadays compared to what they had 20 years ago. We've gone from cars and pistols to high-powered machine guns with heavy rounds and tank-like vehicles.

transfire 12y ago

Here's the problem that no seems to get (especially the police and our politicians): the more they weaponize, the more the citizenry and criminals weaponize to match. How much longer before we hear about the first mass shooting using a drone?

aceperry 12y ago

100 points for hacking the drone and bringing it down like Iran did to the US.

betterunix 12y ago

Just like SWAT teams are used sparingly...

Roboprog 12y ago

I'm reminded of an old Larry Niven short story where kids hide in the park and throw rocks at the "copseyes". An incidental part of the story was that the police had floating camera platforms. And people didn't like them.